Archive for January, 2017

The National Catholic Reporter has a story of how the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests is in the final development stages of issuing an urgent "plea" to the U.S. bishops to "formulate a plan now to meet this emerging crisis" of parish closings and consolidations. In a working draft it calls a "Proposal for Pastoral Care In & Thru Priestless Parishes," the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests exhorts the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and "dioceses nationwide" to quickly address the issue.

Gerry O Hanlon SJ in an opinion piece in the Irish Times maintains that Pope Francis is quietly revolutionising the Church. "It seems to me that what is going on here is that Francis is proposing a paradigm shift in our model of church that, in effect, reverses the status quo of the past millennium and returns, with appropriate adjustments for our age, to a first millennium model. This is huge, a ‘quiet revolution’, which, strategically, has the potential to unlock many concrete issues of contention within the Church."

Gerry maintains that this model of church needs to be adopted at a local level.

Sean McDonagh and Tony Flannery spoke today with Miriam O’Callaghan on RTE Radio 1. Tony said that the Church in Ireland is “in a state of utter collapse”, with people “leaving the Church in droves”, and action is needed to change this. They said the Catholic Church also needs to apologise for how it has treated women and give them more power in the Church.

1st Reading: Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13

I will leave

A reflection by Fr Jim Bacik on the US election. Jim gave a joint diocesan retreat for Tuam and Kilalloe priests in Esker last June. His wisdom and spirituality was well received with Karl Rahner as a 'giant on his shoulder'. "it is clear that Pope Francis offers a worldview that challenges the thrust of the Trump movement."